By: Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
It was a battle for the taste buds with a serving of education Friday at Buckeye Central Elementary as the Cooking Caravan brought their form of edible education entertainment to the school.
The Cooking Caravan, which was brought in by the Buckeye Central PTO to help create food as part of a healthy eating initiative. The event was held twice Friday with the kindergarten through third grade’s presentation lasting from 9:30 until 10:30 AM and the fourth grade through sixth grade lasting from noon until 1 PM.
John Croke, who acted as announcer for the event, explained that this was the first time that the group had done a presentation for an entire school.
“This is the first school we have been to, usually we have done everything else under the sun, but normally we don’t do entire schools,” Croke said. “Normally when we walk in we come in with common ingredients, no recipes, and no themes we pick people and create everything on the fly. Everybody in the audience gets to try it, and that is usually what we do.”
“This is kind of a new project for us creating extensions that go into the classrooms. This is one of our programs, but it is our benchmark or flagship program,” Croke continued. “It is kind of what got us together half of us are educators and half of us are chefs and seeing the disconnection that kids have with food is kind of how this project started.”
The event began with randomly selected students being assigned to one of three chefs. The students would then act as the sous chefs to help their team leader prepare the culinary treat. As chefs Mark, Chuck, John, and the students were busy making their creations, Croke asked the students in the bleachers what some of the culinary terms being used during the presentation. During the course of the presentation the chefs showed students a quick pickling method for their concoctions.
After the 40 minute time limit was reached the teachers of the elementary school became the judges of whose cuisine would reign supreme. The earlier competition saw Chef Chuck’s team win the earlier round however the second round needed a tie-breaker between Chef Chuck’s chips and salsa treat, and Chef Mark’s Taco Rolls. The tie-breaker was decided by Elementary Principal Matt Millinger who chose Chef Chuck’s chips and salsa.
Buckeye Central Board member Beth Diesch explained the motivation of bringing the Cooking Caravan to the school.
“I love to eat, I love to teach kids how to eat healthy, and I love to see kids cooking in the kitchen. I do that with my kids all the time,” Diesch said. “So when I had seen these guys at some libraries this past summer I thought it was perfect.”
While a majority of the student population wasn’t able to try the treats after the show, cooking kits for the students will be presented to them on Monday.